- Order intake and closing order book both surge 41 per cent to £117.9mn and £78.4mn
- Underlying pre-tax profit up 36 per cent to produce EPS of 39.7p
- Equipment order book and service revenue cover 95 per cent of 2022 forecast revenue
- Ohio-based Switchback continues to exceed expectations
Small-cap niche packaging engineering group Mpac (MPAC: 505p), has posted a 5 per cent earnings beat and that’s after analysts upgraded their full-year estimates by 5 per cent at the half-year results (‘Bargain Shares: On the hunt for value’, 6 September 2021). There are multiple growth drivers at play here.
Firstly, two-thirds of last year’s revenue of £94.3mn came from North America, a region that has posted a strong economic recovery following the Covid-19 induced recession. Management has leveraged what remains a favourable backdrop by adding breadth to Mpac's carton and end-of-line solutions through the September 2020 acquisition of Ohio-based Switchback. That business has increased the group’s potential customer base to build sales in North America, and is exploiting cross-selling opportunities across the enlarged group’s enhanced product and services offering.